


Birthday Presents

by Rahmi



Series: Flames [6]
Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Cats, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-03
Updated: 2010-05-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 08:43:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahmi/pseuds/Rahmi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Layla thinks Warren needs gifts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kitten

**Author's Note:**

> I gave Warren a kitten.

"It's a cat, Warren," Layla says.  
  
Warren pokes the cat in the side and watches as it puffs up. "I can see that," he mutters, "But why is it at my house?"  
  
"You know how my mom can talk to animals?" Layla says; she's using that tone of voice she always gets when she's about to make you come around to her way of thinking. He's already shaking his head when she says, "She just thought you might be a little lonely. Stop shaking your head at me, you're keeping the cat."  
  
"No, I'm not," Warren gently nudges the cat over towards Layla. It gives him a disdainful look and lazily lifts one side of its mouth in a silent hiss. "I'm really bad with animals."  
  
"Really?" she asks. "I would have thought cats loved you. You're really, really warm, you know? They appreciate that in a person. That's what my Mom always says."  
  
"Then it's just me."  
  
Layla purses her lips and scoops the cat up. "Do you want me to ask my mom to ask a cat why they don't like you?"  
  
"No."  
  
"I'm going to do it anyway."  
  
"I know."  
  
"Well, good."  
  
The cat gives Warren a nasty look. Warren narrows his own eyes back at it and thinks about burning its ridiculously fluffy fur off. He kind of liked the way those hairless cats looked. "I'm still not getting a pet," Warren warns her.  
  
"Of course not!" Layla inches closer with the cat dangling from her hands. "Just because something isn't a bipedal primate doesn't mean it's automatically subservient in a relationship with humans. She'd be your roommate, not your pet."  
  
Warren snorts. "I'd be the one paying for food and picking up her poop," he points out, "I'm pretty sure that doesn't make her a roommate."  
  
"That's a bad way of looking at it," Layla says. She leans into his personal space with the cat and smiles. "Think of it as you paying her back for an intrinsic part of her nature that you can't duplicate. There's nothing like a purring cat to make a person feel happy."  
  
"I think I'll pass."  
  
"You can't."  
  
"I can."  
  
"No."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Warren, stop being difficult."  
  
Warren blows his hair out of his eyes, leaning away when the cat's ears tilt back against its skull. "Hippie," he says, "If I wanted something to stare at me like I was a cockroach, I wouldn't have moved out."  
  
Layla's entire body droops. "Okay," she says, "Fine. Thanks for totally making me feel like a bad person when I was trying to do something nice for you, by the way."  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
She makes a noise of frustration. The cat wriggles out of her arms to go stalking across Warren's floor with its tail in the air. "We don't like the idea of you living here by yourself."  
  
"We?" Warren asks.  
  
"You know," Layla says, waving her hand, "Me, Mrs. Stronghold, Ethan, Magenta, Zach. Will. Everyone who knows you and isn't too much of a jerk to not care about you. We don't like it. You need something to come home to."  
  
"Do you guys seriously sit around talking about me while I'm not there?"  
  
"Sometimes."  
  
Warren rubs at his eyes with the side of one hand, letting deep heat sink into his skull in the hopes that it'll stop the impending headache.   
  
"Does your head hurt?" Layla asks. She pushes back into his personal space and strokes a hand across his forehead; they both pretend not to notice how badly Warren flinches away from it. "Do you want some peppermint tea?"  
  
"No." Warrens bat her hand away, taking a healthy step backwards after a glance down to make sure he's not going to step on the cat. "I don't want any tea."  
  
Her nose wrinkles. "Don't be like that," she says. She flicks her wrist and a plant suddenly twines out of her hair to nudge at her hand. "Here, look, I even brought some with me because I knew you weren't taking care of yourself right. Where's your teapot?"  
  
Warren cocks his head at her, one eyebrow raised. "I don't really need one," he says. He waves his hand when she just stares at him, letting fire trail across the back of his wrist. "It's kind of a waste of a paycheck."  
  
"Oh!" Layla shakes her head at him. "So where're your cups? You heat up some water, we'll let this steep, and then your headache will be in the past."  
  
"Prefer it if you just left."  
  
"You're out of luck then, huh?"  
  
She turns around and heads off towards his tiny kitchen. Warren figures it's best if she figures out his lack of dishes for herself and lets her.  
  
The cat chooses that moment to attack Warren's shoelaces. He glances down at it. It slits its eyes back up at him and contemplatively attempts to gut the heels of his shoes. "Seriously," Warren says, "Get this thing out of here."  
  
"She likes you," Layla calls, then, "Do you really only have styrofoam cups? Do you know how long it takes these things to biodegrade? And what it does to the marine life when it finally does? I'm going to get you some mugs or something, this is terrible."  
  
"Not all of us are flower children," Warren mutters. He stares down at the cat. The cat gleefully rakes his shoe with its back claws; he nudges it away from him, except it latches on with its claws and, great, like he needs any more scuff marks in his shoes.


	2. Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warren needs more birthday presents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty much my Layla is awkward and so is Warren chapter.

Layla does not spend weeks agonizing over Warren's birthday present, despite what Will claims. It's just that you only turn any kind of age once so you have to have the perfect present to remember it by. It's a rule somewhere, she's sure.  
  
What she settles on isn't perfect, but it's probably about as close to perfect as she can get. People always claim that it's hard to find something for someone who has everything, but nobody ever says how _hard_ it is to give gifts to someone who has, well, nothing.  
  
"I don't do birthdays," Warren says immediately.  
  
Layla just smiles harder, trips him with a root, and shoves the present into his hands when he starts flailing to keep his balance. "What was that?" she asks sweetly.  
  
"You shouldn't have," Warren deadpans.  
  
She nudges him with one elbow. "Stop being a grouch," she says. "You only turn seventeen once, Warren. You need something to remember it by."  
  
"You're not throwing me a party, are you?" Warren's glare switches from her present to her, but Layla can honestly throw her hands up in the air and claim innocence.  
  
She's not planning a party. That's Will's present.  
  
"Does that sound like something I would do?"  
  
"Yes," Warren says immediately. "Hippies love to throw parties."  
  
Layla shrugs. "I'm not invited to most of my mom's," she says. "While me and Mom don't find anything wrong with the human body, some other people strongly object to underage persons being at a nudist beach."  
  
"Can't imagine why," Warren mutters.  
  
"Hush up and open your present."  
  
Even though Warren doesn't say anything about it, the way he's staring down at the wrapping paper makes Layla want to cry. It's like he's never gotten a present before.  
  
She raises herself up onto her tiptoes so that she can throw both arms around his neck and drag him down to her level. "Hey," she says, "It's okay if you don't want to open it right now, okay? I just wanted to get you something."  
  
Warren stiffens in her arms because he's not really good with affection, but Layla just hangs on, gives him a kiss on the cheek while she's here and he's close.  
  
"I really like you," she says when he just gives her a deer in the headlights look. "I just wanted to make sure you knew that."  
  
Warren clears his throat and tries to back away. "I already know that," he says gruffy, hands very gentle as he pushes at her shoulders.  
  
"That's good." Layla thinks about tangling him up in the nearby bushes, but his face is going really, really red and as cute as that is, she doesn't want him dying of embarassment.  
  
At least not before Will's surprise party.


End file.
